Cybersecurity

Apparent cyberthieves used Bangladesh bank codes to get $100M from its Federal Reserve account

Apparent cyberthieves took advantage of a disconnect between the work week in New York and the work week in Bangladesh to steal $100 million from the account held by the country’s central bank at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. However, it could have been worse: Unusually large transactions…

Mar 11, 2016 2:50 PM CST

Home Depot to pay nearly $20M over 2014 data breach that affected more than 40M customers

A 2014 data breach that affected more than 40 million credit and debit cardholders is going to cost Home Depot nearly $20 million in consumer compensation in order to resolve a federal lawsuit. Without admitting liability, the company has agreed to improve data security plus pay $13 million in reimbursement…

Mar 8, 2016 4:10 PM CST

Senior Facebook exec held for questioning as Brazil seeks WhatsApp info in drug case

Facebook Inc.’s top executive in Latin America was held for questioning on a Brazilian judge’s order on Tuesday, after the company allegedly failed to cooperate by providing WhatsApp information in a secret drug-trafficking case. Diego Dzodan was being questioned in São Paulo in what Facebook described as an “extreme and…

Mar 1, 2016 1:10 PM CST

Red flag in email scams: ‘Have you already been contacted by (insert lawyer name)?’

Scammers are stealing billions from corporations by impersonating their CEOs and their lawyers, the Financial Times (sub. req.) reports. Hacking skills, of course, are helpful to cybercriminals, who may gain access to a company officer’s real email account. However, a spoofed account that doesn’t actually belong to the corporate chief…

Feb 26, 2016 8:05 AM CST

Apple moves to vacate court order requiring it to develop software to access encrypted iPhone

Responding in a Thursday filing to a controversial magistrate’s order requiring Apple Inc. to help the feds access the contents of an encrypted iPhone, the company has asked a federal district court to vacate the order. Used by a now-deceased California man responsible for San Bernardino attack that killed 14…

Feb 25, 2016 5:00 PM CST

Man gets 46 months for email scam that told lawyer to send client’s $250K to 3rd party

An Ohio man was sentenced this month to 46 months in federal prison for sending a spoofed email that tricked an upstate New York real estate attorney into sending $250,000 from a client’s real estate transaction to a third party. Paul Lacey, 56, was also ordered to pay $337,002.64 in…

Feb 24, 2016 2:10 PM CST

County gave feds OK to unlock killer’s iPhone, but it never installed feature allowing remote access

Amidst the hoopla over Apple Inc.’s resistance to a federal court order requiring the company to cooperate with efforts to unlock an iPhone linked to a December work-related shooting in San Bernardino, California, there has been little media focus on the government’s basis for seeking access. The iPhone 5C in…

Feb 22, 2016 3:40 PM CST

Gamergate shows that Web harassment by ‘faceless multitude’ is beyond reach of the law, WaPo says

When a former relationship ended in an allegedly harassing online diatribe, Zoe Quinn got a restraining order against Eron Gjoni. But then a bigger problem began, the Washington Post (reg. req.) reports in a lengthy story. A group of anonymous individuals involved in an online attack known as Gamergate targeted…

Feb 18, 2016 1:10 PM CST

An hour spent on security checklist will help block hackers, WSJ tech columnist says

An hour spent on a security checklist developed by a newspaper columnist can significantly enhance the chance of avoiding hack attacks, he contends. Published in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal (sub. req.), the checklist by personal technology columnist Geoffrey Fowler guides the reader through software updates, password improvements and browser privacy,…

Feb 3, 2016 4:35 PM CST

Bank tellers may pose greater threat to customers than hackers, NY Times says

It may not be hackers that pose the biggest threat to bank customers’ funds and personal information. Bank tellers have access to a great deal of information about customers, as well as their accounts, and a lack of security and enforcement against those who transgress leaves customers vulnerable, the New…

Feb 3, 2016 11:10 AM CST

Lawyers and clients beware: Spoof phone calls may direct funds to scammers

Lawyers should consider warning clients not to assume that caller ID is correct when it shows that a call seems to be coming from their attorney’s phone number, says the State Bar of Arizona in a news release. Scammers may be “spoofing” phone numbers of attorneys—tricking caller ID into displaying…

Feb 1, 2016 2:35 PM CST

Programmer gets probation in spam scheme instead of 2 years recommended by sentencing guidelines

Federal sentencing guidelines called for two years in prison for computer expert who wrote a program that helped scammers send millions of spam messages to illegally harvest email addresses and phone numbers, but on Thursday a federal judge in Pittsburgh sentenced him to just two years of probation, the Associated…

Jan 29, 2016 1:05 PM CST

Hackers are stealing closing funds by intercepting lawyer-client email, experts say

Hackers are intercepting email between lawyers and clients, as well as real estate agents and their clients, in an effort to steal closing funds. The scheme has been successful in at least 91 cases involving the theft of an average of 112,000 pounds, a British newspaper reports. And a San…

Jan 11, 2016 4:15 PM CST

You can sue someone who broke into your email, but you’d better find proof fast

In August 2011, New York City teacher Chantay Sewell tried to log in to her AOL account and couldn't. Shortly afterward, a message making defamatory claims about her sex life went out from her email address. Seven months later, the same thing happened with her Facebook account.

Jan 1, 2016 3:30 AM CST

Teenager whose prank calls sent armed SWAT teams to dozens of US homes got 16 months

A single Canadian teenager made dozens of prank phone calls to police throughout the U.S., sending SWAT teams to hold innocent individuals at gunpoint at their homes as authorities investigated his false claims of dangerous crimes in progress. But because of both legal loopholes and the teen’s location on the…

Nov 25, 2015 2:30 PM CST